


The Oak Tree and the Cypress Grow Not In Each Other's Shadow

by Siavahda



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 20:07:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4718849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siavahda/pseuds/Siavahda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Aku cinta kamu,”</i> he whispered, the phrase he’d spent weeks practicing rising out of the delirium in his mind like a piece of flotsam, useless, meaningless.</p><p>Did Magnus pause as he walked away? Alec wasn’t sure.</p><p>He was sorry. This wasn’t… He hadn’t… He was so sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Oak Tree and the Cypress Grow Not In Each Other's Shadow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Starrie_Wolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/gifts).



> So basically, the wonderful Starrie_Wolf got stiffed on zer fic exchange, and I said I'd write a fic for zem instead. Ze requested injured Alec crawling home and Magnus not noticing/ignoring the injury - we both have a thing about the canon characterizations of Magnus and Alec, and this kind of grew out of that.
> 
> Heed the warning, my lovelies.
> 
> The title is from Kahlil Gibran's poem _On Marriage_ , which I believe is the best and most beautiful description of a healthy romantic relationship _ever_ \- and one which canon Malec so don't fit.

For a second Clary, half-asleep in her chair at Jace’s bedside, thought that she was back at the battle, Glorious’ hilt in her hands and Sebastian’s scream a hymn of loss and anguish on the wind—

But it was Jace screaming, Jace jerking awake in the Infirmary bed with his hands clutching his chest, his face a poem of pain, and Izzy was yelling and Clary had never, ever seen Jace so terrified as he stared at something they couldn’t see, felt something they couldn’t feel, knew what they couldn’t know.

*

Azazel slipped from Alec’s fingers as he stumbled back against the wall, fumbling for his stele. The seraph blade clattered on the ground, its light casting dark glimmers on the near-black blood pooling around Camille’s body, on the silver blade standing upright from her heart.

On her black-lacquered nails.

He’d known what was in her nail polish the moment her first snarling cut landed, as her claws sliced through his shirt like knives and streaked hot pain across—through— _into_ his skin. He’d known as it started to burn, knew it long before he traced useless _iratzes_ on his arms with a shaking hand. When the Marks faded away like ghosts in the night, he didn’t need the confirmation.

Demon venom.

It had never been about him. He could see that now, glaring neon and white in his eyes. She’d planned to kill him even if he’d agreed to strip Magnus of his immortality—why else paint poison on her nails, all ebony iridescence shadowing every gesture of her hands?—because all she’d wanted was to hurt Magnus. Alec—Alec was just the tool she’d tried to use.

He had to get out of here. He had to get home. He had to get _home_.

It wasn’t just the venom. No Shadowhunter ever defeated a vampire as old and clever as Camille with just a scratch or two. Struggling to make his way back through the subway tunnels, every breath drove a pick-axe through his chest, broken ribs piercing something vital, and his shirt was waterlogged with blood, a thick weight pulling at him. There was something wrong with his right leg—it was numb below the hip—and his head was ringing, burning, full of smoke.

He dropped his stele, somewhere. He dropped the witchlight because his hands wouldn’t stop shaking, because the earth seemed to heave under his feet and the walls spun like a merry-go-round, and the pain was a midnight sun, blinding, searing everything else away.

He had his arms wrapped around his damp chest when his aching eyes finally spotted what had to be City Hall station, awash with light that blurred and shimmered in his swimming vision. Could Jace feel him now, did he know what was wrong? He probably couldn’t come himself, no so soon after Glorious had seared him clean of Sebastian’s taint, but maybe he had sent Izzy, sent their parents…

“Alec,” a familiar voice said behind him. “Alexander Gideon Lightwood.”

“Magnus?” Alec turned and nearly fell, the sudden movement driving daggers into his lungs.

It was him. Magnus stood in the shadows, a suit jacket thrown over one of his t-shirts. His hair was a ruffled mess, as if he’d just climbed out of bed.

“I thought you were asleep,” Alec whispered.

“Evidently.” Magnus’ eyes—was it only the pain smearing Alec’s vision that made them look so cold?

Alec’s throat felt clogged with sulfur. It was a struggle to draw breath. “Did you follow me?”

“You could say that. It helped that I knew where you were going.” Magnus took a folded square of paper from the pocket of his jacket. Alec couldn’t read the calligraphic writing on it—not from here, not in the dark, not with the world melting around him like chalk in the rain—but his heart sank even before Magnus continued “You know, when she told me you’d been here—told me about the bargain she’d struck with you—I didn’t believe her. I didn’t _want_ to believe her.”

“Camille told you,” Alec said softly. Of course she had. Of course.

“Of course she told me,” Magnus said, as if he could hear Alec’s thoughts—even as they blackened at the edges, like paper licked by flames. “I warned you she was a master at manipulation and politics, but you didn’t listen to me. Who do you think she’d rather have on her side—me or you? You’re eighteen years old, Alexander. You’re not exactly a powerful ally.”

And growing weaker by the minute, Alec thought hysterically. “I wouldn’t do it,” he said, and it was like lifting anchors through murky water, dragging each word up and out of his throat—it was so hard to think, to focus, to stay on his feet. “I came here and told her the bargain was off—”

“You had to come all the way here, to this abandoned subway station, to deliver that message?” Magnus asked. “You don’t think you could have delivered essentially the same message by, perhaps, staying away?”

“It—” Alec swayed a little, struggling. “It was—”

“And even if you did come here—unnecessarily—and tell her the deal was off,” Magnus continued, and his voice was ice, ice and Alec was burning up, turning to fire breath by breath, “why are you here _now?_ Social call? Just visiting? Explain it to me, Alexander, if there’s something I’m missing.”

“I wanted—I only—” The words crumbled to ash as he reached for them, dissolving into dust, he was at the center of a sandstorm and screaming but not loud enough, not loudly enough for anyone to hear as it scoured the skin from his bones and he couldn’t, he _couldn’t—_

“I was thinking about it, you know,” Magnus said. “That’s part of why I wanted the Book of White. Immortality can be a burden. You think of the days that stretch out before you, when you have been everywhere, seen everything. The one thing I hadn’t experienced was growing old with someone—someone I loved. I thought perhaps it would be you. But that does not give you the right to make the length of my life _your choice_ and not mine.”

“M-Magnus, I…” He was going to fall. The ground was roiling like a sea beneath his feet, and he was panting, short, quick, agonizing breaths with a whimper caught between his teeth, a scream lodged like a stone in his throat. “P-please—”

But Magnus turned away. “I’ll be out all day. Come and get your things out of the apartment. Leave your key on the dining room table.”

Alec bit his lip, shaking. The taste of blood flooded his mouth as he sank to his knees in the dirt, clutching his chest, the shadows of the tunnel eating away at the edges of his vision like acid, like Ravener demons.

 _“Aku cinta kamu,”_ he whispered, the phrase he’d spent weeks practicing rising out of the delirium in his mind like a piece of flotsam, useless, meaningless.

Did Magnus pause as he walked away? Alec wasn’t sure.

He was sorry. This wasn’t… He hadn’t… He was so sorry.

Slowly, almost gently, he fell forward onto his face, his cheek pressed into the cool, dark dirt.

*

And miles away in the New York Institute, Jace’s hand came away from his chest smeared with red.


End file.
